Kansas' Opportunity Zone 2.0 Nominations

Update: 10.2.2026 - Commerce confirmed the list. On October 2, 2026 the Kansas Department of Commerce produced a reorganized workbook. The 53 tracts mapped below are Kansas’s OZ 2.0 nominations according to Commerce’s response to my KORA.

Kansas has not published the census tracts it nominated for designation as qualified opportunity zones effective January 1, 2027. I requested them under the Kansas Open Records Act, asking for “the list of population census tracts that the Governor of Kansas nominated for designation as qualified opportunity zones and transmitted to the Secretary of the Treasury, identified by census tract number or eleven digit GEOID.”

On September 22, 2026, the Kansas Department of Commerce produced a single spreadsheet holding 96 eleven-digit identifiers on a worksheet titled “OZ 1 and 2 together.” It combined the zones Kansas designated in 2018 with the new round, and nothing on the sheet says which is which.

Scope: This piece publishes the nominated tracts and explains how they were identified.

How the 53 were identified

The list Commerce provided contains 96 tracts. Forty-three of them are zones Kansas designated in 2018, and none of those 43 appears on Treasury’s list of tracts eligible for nomination in the 2027 round. Rev. Proc. 2026-14, Appendix. The other 53 all do. Kansas is entitled to no more than 53: § 1400Z-1(d)(1) caps a state at 25% of its low-income communities, rounded up, and the appendix lists 210 eligible tracts in Kansas. Commerce has since confirmed this. On October 2, 2026 it produced a reorganized workbook adding a column identifying which entries were originally OZ 1.0 tracts, and stated that rows 55 through 97 “are exclusive the OZ 1.0 tracts.” That column marks 14 of the 53 nominations as previously designated, the same 14 the CDFI list identifies. Below is a map of the 53, with a toggle to view all 96 tracts produced in response to my request.

The map

Fifty-three tracts across 24 counties. Twenty-seven are comprised entirely of a rural area.

Qualifications

Commerce has not officially published this list, so please take this information with the qualifications as to how this information was obtained.

A nominated tract is not a qualified opportunity zone until the Secretary of the Treasury certifies it. § 1400Z-1(b)(1)(A). The list can still change. Requests to modify a nomination after October 28, 2026 will be denied, Rev. Proc. 2026-14 § 5.03, and the Secretary then has 30 days to act. Check any tract against Treasury’s designation list before relying on it.

Citations

Statutes

• 26 U.S.C. § 1400Z-1 (designation of qualified opportunity zones; nomination and certification at (b)(1)(A); 30-day consideration period at (c)(2)(A); 25% limitation at (d)(1)).
• One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Pub. L. No. 119-21, § 70421, 139 Stat. 72 (July 4, 2025) (designation period beginning January 1, 2027).
• Kan. Stat. Ann. §§ 45-215 to 45-223 (Kansas Open Records Act).

Administrative Authority

• Rev. Proc. 2026-14, 2026-20 I.R.B. 910 (nomination procedure; § 3.01(1) tracts eligible for nomination as 2027 zones, determined on the 2020-2024 ACS 5-Year data set; § 5.03 the October 28, 2026 modification cutoff; Appendix, list of eligible tracts).
• Notice 2018-48 (zones designated under the original program).

Data Sources

• Kansas Department of Commerce, production in response to a Kansas Open Records Act request dated September 16, 2026 (produced September 22, 2026), workbook “Kansas OZ List,” worksheet “OZ 1 and 2 together”; supplemented by a reorganized workbook produced October 2, 2026 adding a column identifying the entries that were originally OZ 1.0 tracts.
• CDFI Fund, Designated Qualified Opportunity Zones (Dec. 14, 2018).
• U.S. Census Bureau, TIGERweb (tract and county boundaries shown on the map).